


Pyrexia

by halotolerant



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: ...sort of, Cannibalism, Chicken Soup, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e10 Naka-Choko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will scans him from head to toe and raises half an eyebrow, visibly surprised. </p><p>“I didn’t know you were capable of catching cold, Dr Lecter.”</p><p>Hannibal inclines his head, gesturing Will past him into the main office. “I am, as you must be aware, only human.”</p><p>Will raises his eyebrow again, and walks past slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pyrexia

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: 'would you mind writing feverish Hannibal and Will taking care of him? Having a fever on and off for a week made me want to see Hannibal suffering along with me' 
> 
> Set between 2x10 and 2x11

The other patients have largely failed to notice Hannibal’s symptoms, subtle as they have become after ingesting various medications. Over the counter cold and flu remedies are intended for idiots who can’t be trusted to handle concepts of time or unit calculation, and with no sense of their own physiology; Hannibal doses himself considerably outside formulary regulations.

However even he must know his body’s limits, and it so happens that when it comes round to Will’s appointment time, the anti-inflammatories and phenethylamines are wearing off and yet to be safe to take again, and Hannibal comes to the door of the waiting room fighting a sneeze.

He pauses, a moment, not turning the handle. There is a sore catch in his throat when he swallows and his eyes and nose are starting to feel thick with fluids, and it is all most irritating.

This is the price one pays, of course, for entertaining intimacies involving a degree of secretion-exchange. When he has been celibate, his careful hygiene practices have left him without seasonal viruses; with Alana, who teaches student classes, pressing her mouth against his own on frequent occasions, this is - although not unpleasant - a certain kind of risk.

And so it has proved.

As he opens the door, Hannibal is struck with a sudden sense that being seen, like this, by Will, is not precisely something he would wish for. He had thought, in the morning, considering his working day, that a slight visible vulnerability, and in such a common human way, would be a small votive offering in the direction of their growing trust.

Now he is concerned that his nose is red and his eyes rheumy.

And unlike the preceding patients, Will sees it all.

Of course.

Will scans him from head to toe and raises half an eyebrow, visibly surprised.

“I didn’t know you were capable of catching cold, Dr Lecter.”

Hannibal inclines his head, gesturing Will past him into the main office. “I am, as you must be aware, only human.”

Will raises his eyebrow again, and walks past slowly. He never quite - quite - sways his hips enough for Hannibal to pinpoint if it is calculated, and if so to what degree and with what result in mind.

They take their seats. Hannibal sneezes and grabs for a handkerchief in his top pocket.

“I would offer to make you chicken soup, Dr Lecter, but considering our history that might carry… overtones.”

“That soup was intended for your wellbeing.”

“Oh you were frightfully concerned about my state of health, I don’t doubt that. ‘Wellbeing’, however…” Will smiles very slightly. His words and his tone and his face don’t match up as they would in ordinary people.

And right now Hannibal feels thick-headed, and thinking in this state is like running when the pavements are knee-deep in snow.

But he has always been an excellent athlete.

Will makes a dissatisfied cluck, and tilts his head, studying Hannibal, and sighs.

“Again, Dr Lecter, I don’t intend any side meaning or subtext when I ask if you’ve taken your temperature recently. You look rather red.”

“So you are the doctor now?”

“Physician, heal thyself? You’re not much use to me if you catch pneumonia.”

The words are stark, uncushioned, and somehow change the shape of the air in the room.

He is - or could be - of use to Will, is the corresponding admission.

He stares at Will for a moment; the view is slightly hazy. Then he sneezes again.

Will stands up out of his chair, hands on his hips. “Come with me back to Wolf Trap. I’ll make you a Thai fish curry and a hot honey and lemon and you can stop taking whatever the fuck is making you so slow today.”

“You lecture me on correct use of medication?”

Will narrows his eyes. “Beverley clocked my aspirin habit, just before… the arrest. She ran me through all the over the counter stuff and what not to do with it. She was a very intelligent and very kind woman.” The words spit out, heavy.

Hannibal tenses. His muscles have started aching round the base of his neck. It is on the tip of his tongue to say that he never personally wished Beverley Katz dead, right up until the moment that he did.

Will waits for a few seconds, blinking at him, a strange look on his face, almost… hopeful?

Hannibal cannot think, and silence is always the first strategic defence, and he only coughs and licks drying, sore lips.

“I’ll take care of you,” Will says, beckoning. “'Even Steven' - isn’t that how it is with us?”

Perhaps he wants Hannibal to say that, were Will to treat Hannibal as it had been done in reverse, Hannibal would not profit by it.

But that is just what Will, as yet, cannot comprehend, although now - since the banquet of Freddie Lounds - Hannibal has dared to begin to believe they are closer to the endgame than he had thought.

“Fish curry is not chicken soup,” Hannibal points out, just to have something to say, moving forwards, slipping on his coat. And why not spend the night at Will’s house. Why not do what he wants, what he’s aching for and was aching for well before this illness? Surely his unclouded mind would decide the same?

Will stops, pauses a moment. His lip curls slowly into a smile.

“Bring some meat from your freezer, then,” Will says, grin liquid in his eyes and almost glowing, and catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “And we’ll be equal indeed.”

Hannibal’s whole body convulses in a rippling shiver. 


End file.
